


The Lullaby

by jennifercharter



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 21:48:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2597594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennifercharter/pseuds/jennifercharter





	The Lullaby

The lullaby is the spell whereby the mother attempts to transform herself back from an ogre to a saint. - James Fenton

Abby fidgeted slightly as the guard pulled the door open.   
The boy inside spun from the grated window (or hole in the wall) he’d been peering out of. A myriad of emotions went across his face. Hope, disappointment, annoyance and finally settling on frustration as he turned to face her. From her brief talks with her daughter and Thelonius about him, she thought his face was probably stuck that way.  
Behind her a guard carried in a chair and then shut the door behind him.  
“What do you want?”  
She raised her eyebrows at him, annoyed and caught the amusement that crossed his face for a moment. “I’m the doctor.”  
“Yeah, I know.”  
She blinks. “Have we met?” She doesn’t think they spoke even once on the trek back to camp. She was too busy talking to Finn about Clarke.  
“Hardly,” he muttered. “Trust me, I recognize that look on your face when you’re annoyed. The resemblance is impossible to miss.”  
She blinks. “Clarke?”  
He shrugged, looking away from her. “Yeah.”  
“Sit,” she said softly and when he frowned at her she smiled. “I just want to check your face, clean it up a bit.”  
“Whatever,” he said, but sat on the chair.  
She set up her supplies, taking her time to give him a moment to adjust to her, and felt his eyes watching her. She wonders fleetingly if they’re friends, this boy and her daughter. Finn had said they worked together well, when they weren’t fighting loud enough to wake the whole camp over details.  
She wants to ask because she wants to know everything about the last few weeks in her daughter’s life. She doesn’t ask because where Finn had been open, more than willing to talk she can tell by just meeting this boy that he would make her beg for each scrap of information. There’s a lot of anger in him, and she doesn’t think it’s just because he’s locked up.  
“She looks like you,” he said quietly interrupting her thoughts.  
She hesitated, her fingers twitching over the rag she’d brought to clean his face. “Is she alive, do you think?”  
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve been locked up in here, unable to go look for her, or the others. Turns out the new chancellor is just as much of an ass as the last one,” he says bitterly.  
Abby glares at him. “Don’t talk about him that way. Thelonius was a good man, making hard choices. You wouldn’t understand.”  
“You think I wouldn’t understand hard choices? Lady, I’ve been leading these kids, making those choices. Your daughter and I have done the best we could, and we’ve had to watch while people die all around us. Don’t talk to me about hard choices.”  
“And you’ve learned nothing from it,” she said softly. “You almost killed that boy at your camp.”  
“Murphy?” He scoffed. “Leave me alone with him for a couple of minutes and I promise, I’ll do better than almost.”  
“This isn’t who you should be.”  
His face paled, she could see that even beneath the blood and grime, and she wonders why this sets him off. “Who we are and what we have to do to survive isn’t the same thing,” he said angrily. “Your daughter understands that.”  
“You don’t have to be killers.”  
“He put a knife to her throat!” He burst out. “Threatened to kill her right in front of me, and caused a little girl’s death. He put a noose around my neck, and he said it was good that Clarke was dead, and….” He trailed off and then took a deep breath. “We’re survivors, Doc. And if I’d killed him instead of listening to Clarke a long time ago, a lot of people may not have died.” He looks conflicted for a moment. “Even if she would have hated me.”  
“My daughter is a good girl. She’s quiet and calm, and she would never hurt anyone, and my God, she isn’t this girl you’re all describing.” Abby knows she’s gone off on a rant, desperate and pleading, but she just can’t care.  
She expects…. well, actually she doesn’t know what she expects, but she’s still surprised at his response.  
He’s laughing at her. It’s a low laugh, dark and completely lacking in joy. “Lady, I hate to tell you this, but I don’t think I’ve ever met the girl you’re describing.”  
For a moment she frowns, confused, and then he looks up at her and she’s blown away by the expression on his face, the grin and the absolute smugness, and there’s fear there, absolute terror in his eyes that she doesn’t understand at all.  
“The Clarke I know, the princess,” his voice catches on the nickname but he clears his throat and pretends it didn’t happen. “She’s stronger than anyone I’ve ever known. She’s brave, so stupidly brave, and loyal, and so damn frustrating because she argues with me about everything, no matter what I do. And she’s stubborn and she stands by you, and you know the worst part?”  
She hummed questioningly, staring at him as he stares down at the ground while he rants.  
“She is so strong, so when she tells you she needs you, it’s.. I don’t think there’s even a word for it.”  
Abby is speechless, can’t even begin to form words, so she works instead, and begins to hum at one point, not even aware of it until he backs away sharply as though she’s struck him.   
“Don’t do that.”  
“Hum?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Why not?”  
He looks absolutely haunted and shakes his head. “Just please?”  
She wants to ask, because this look, this one shocks her, scares her, because she knows Clarke is involved. The lullaby is old, sung to her by her mother, and her mother before her. It’s one she has sung to Clarke since birth, and somehow, she knows, she would not like this story.  
She doesn’t ask.  
“She loves deeply, my girl,” Abby begins, thinking of telling him that the girl he knows isn’t the girl she’s always been, thinks of asking him all those details she can just tell he will know.  
“She’s not your girl,” he said, suddenly angry again and she flinches. “She’s not. The girl you knew, she’s a shadow, a ghost. I’m going to get her and bring her back just so you can see what she is now, because you won’t know her, and I hope it breaks your heart, because you broke hers.”  
She can’t breathe and gasps in air. “She’s my daughter. I love her.”  
“You aren’t the only one,” he said, anger still in his voice. “Me, her, all of us, we’re a family. And I will kill for my family.” He sneers slightly. “Tried it once already, but believe me, I’ve gotten better at it.”  
“You love her.” He sneered at her, shaking his head as though she’s missed something that should have been obvious. “You’re in love with her.”  
He faltered for the first time, a confused look, and maybe just a hint of panic on his face. Then he shook his head. “You don’t get it, it’s not like that. We’ve saved each other. We’ve worked together, and you have no idea how hard that has been. We’ve even become friends, I think.”   
She hums slightly. I think you’re lying, maybe even to yourself, she thinks, but doesn’t say it.  
“She’s alive,” he mutters finally, as she’s finished wiping his hands clean.   
Abby’s hands shake and she smiles sadly. “You can’t know that.”  
He scoffed. “She should have been a hundred times down here. I’ve thought she was dead more than a few times, Doc, and been wrong every time. I’ve seen her do… amazing things. There’s no one I trust more to have my back, and no one I would protect more than her and my sister, and until I see her body, right in front of me, I won’t believe it.”  
“Why?” She asks wryly, thinking of how emotion is supposed to not play a role and obviously does.  
“Because she’d do the same for me,” he said quietly, sadly and for a moment he’s lost in thought before he sits up and squares his shoulders. “So fix me up, Doc, because I’m not planning on sticking around for the warped Ark justice Kane probably has planned.”  
She finishes her task in silence and gathers her supplies while he wanders back to the window. “She must really care about you.”  
He doesn’t turn, and shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”  
“She delayed the plan.” At his confused look she smiles. “The plan to burn the grounders. When they told me about it, I couldn’t believe she came up with it, not my little girl.” She sighs slightly. “But when the gates fell and all of the kids pulled back, Finn and the others say she wouldn’t pull the lever. She ran after you, and said they had to wait for you. Finn says she refused to leave you and only went in when one of the other boys pulled her in. Not for him, or the others. For you.”  
He very carefully didn’t look at her, but his hands were fists at his side. “She did what was best for the group,” he said softly. “Probably the first time she’s ever done what I told her,” he said dryly and laughed slightly.  
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said softly. “I’ll talk to Kane about getting you out of here.”  
He looked at her and then nodded.

She exited the door and found Finn and the guard on the other side, a strange look on Finn’s face as the door closed behind her.   
“What is it?” She asked him quietly, aware of how soundproof the door wasn’t. “Is there news?”  
“No, no there isn’t,” the boy said quietly.   
“What is it?”  
“Clarke and I fought over her trusting him. I told her it was a bad idea. She told me she trusted him anyway. I think I’m starting to get it.”  
“Would you trust him to get them back? To get her back?”  
“Better point?” She nodded and he grinned a touch sadly. “She would trust him. He could have the stupidest plan and they’d fight about it, but in the end, they’d figure it out, together.”  
Abby smiled and started towards medical, stopping when she realized he wasn’t following. “Finn?”  
“There’s a joke around camp,” he began quietly, and she realized the look on his face was a combination of confusion and worry. “They call Clarke Mom, and him Dad. And I always ignored it, because it seemed so stupid but now…”  
“Are you worried?” She asked, trying to tease him.  
“I’m in love with her,” he said quietly, and then turned and walked past her, muttering. “And I’m starting to think I’m not the only one.”  
Later, after making the rounds to check in with the rest of the Ark survivors, Abby wandered into medical and frowned as she put away her supplies and turned to the boy the guards watched over. He gazed back at her defiantly.  
Sighing she turned and found water and walked over to clean the blood and mud from his wounds. The guards stood a few feet away, watching.  
“Do you know who I am?” She asked softly as she finished.  
“No,” he muttered, eyes wary on the guards.  
“My name is Abby Griffin. I’m the doctor. My daughter was part of the one hundred. Her name is Clarke.”  
His eyes widened slightly and she felt his breathing pick up.  
“Yeah,” she whispered, stepping back for a moment, collecting her thoughts, breathing deeply. She realized that until this moment she had doubted the boys. She hadn’t wanted to believe. “You put a knife to my daughter’s throat and threatened to kill her,” she said simply, not a question. She thought of the anger and terror in Blake’s eyes, of the sadness on Finn’s. Would she even know her own daughter when she saw her again, if she saw her again?  
The guards shifted behind her, suddenly more aware.  
“I’m sorry,” the kid said quickly. “I messed up. I get that.”  
“Why didn’t he kill you?”  
Murphy frowned. “Who?”  
“Blake.”  
Murphy frowned. “Clarke wouldn’t let him.”  
“Why not?”   
He shifted, uncomfortable. “She said that it wasn’t right, that they couldn’t decide who lives and dies down here. He listened.” Murphy made a face. “He always listens to her. She’s weak, and he knows it, but he lets her get away with it. I don’t get it.”  
“No,” she said quietly. “I don’t think someone like you would.” She frowned and nodded. “He’s good.” The guards looked at her and she smiled bitterly, knowing exactly where he would be taken, and she couldn’t find it in herself to care. “I’m clearing him. Get him the hell away from me.”  
The guards took him away and she began to plan.


End file.
